While this may end up being true, all we've got now is a Daily Star report... And if it is true, I hope he enjoys his season in the PL...
I don't think Huddersfield is strong enough to stay in the PL. Williams will need to shine to jump ship again next year.
If he does well he can move to different PL team. Nice to see him rewarded for the monster playoff performances. WS don't lie.
Good news for Danny Williams if this goes through. I'd like to see him force his way back into the US pool. He's now in his prime playing years. If he plays regularly in the Premier League he really can't be ignored. Anyone hear anything about Arena excluding him from the 40-man summer roster because he knew a transfer was under negotiation and he decided letting Danny settle with a pending new club was better? US Nats coaches have done this before with other players. Other than Miazga's unsettled situation, the other 39 players are in currently stable club situations.
Miazga is in a 'stable' situation at the moment. That is, he is going back to Chelsea until his loan is worked out. That likely won't happen until near the end of the transfer window at the end of August.
Yeah, that's not an automatic qualifier anymore, if it ever was in the modern era. Williams' new coach David Wagner didn't aid the nt in the late 90's. Morales has had his chances. He's not good enough. I do hope that Williams gets more opportunities though based on his play for Reading and if he is a regular w/ Huddersfield. He was fairly young still when he started out for the U.S., when he underwhelmed he played out of position plenty, had some injuries, and then was pretty persona non grata once he moved to the Championship. He did suck against Costa Rica after the Confed Cup playoff. But that was an eerie and depressing game. I think there are better options than him at the 8 spot, but when he's killswitch engaged he fits when the U.S. is playing press counter, and can add depth in case others go down. I wish he was on the Gold Cup provisional roster.
With Jones nearing the end of the line & Cameron settled at CB for the moment, I hope Williams gets a shot to be the main backup to Bradley/Acosta at the 6/8 spots. Good to see him get to the PL.
They really don't play the same position. McCarty is a stay at home 6, and Williams a box-to-box 8. McCarty's competition is really EPB. And I don't know if EPB warrants a call-up on resume. I've debated it, but it's very borderline. So McCarty's inclusion to this roster seems sort of a no brainer.
I'd say that EPB will play where he does for his club team. Can't see him playing CB for cluba nd then switching to DM for the US. If he plays DM for club then I do see him getting callups there if he turns out as good as it seems he will.
EPB this cycle? He is going to have somehow hit the ground running in whichever top Euro-league he lands. Dax in the US setup is likely depth as a specialist 6, backing up Bradley when he too is deployed in the role. When Arena subbed Jones in a WCQing match, Acosta was the replacement in the 8 role. Bradley(6/8) Roldan(8) Williams(8) McCarty(6) Acosta(8) Cameron(6/8). Cameron played, and played well, in 2-man central midfields for Stoke. But he appears destined for the CB. Perhaps Roldan gets a look-in at the 6.
Our coach has said playing a guy with Bundesliga and Championship experience and excellence, respectively, would be an experiment and we just can't afford to experiments on our Gold Cup roster. We need solid choices. Like Matt Polster.
I agree that it might not be true anymore and that Morales is a good example of that, but I think it's generally been the case that if you were starting regularly in the Bundesliga (or the EPL, Serie A, or La Liga), you'd be a regular with the US -- that is at least on the roster for any major competitive match around the time, and in the vast majority of cases a regular starter as well. If that's not the case anymore, it's a very recent development. If the stats I'm looking at are accurate, Wagner only ever started two games in the Bundesliga ever, so I'm not sure he's a counter example. I can think of a couple exceptions, historically, but they come with giant caveats too (some combination of untimely injuries, playing for a really bad relegated side, and breaking onto the scene when there's not enough time to integrate new players into the picture before a major tournament, e.g. Cory Gibbs).
Yeah, top division field player starters in top Euro leagues have traditionally walked into the Nats as starters... They may lose that status later, as Chandler did, but they start as starters.
Morales has become a full-time starter in central midfield since his last US caps. And JK played him mostly on the flanks.
Chandler is another good example, and that's a different argument. You're talking opportunity vs. viability. I'd like Williams to get another opportunity, but he's far from automatically viable if he's a starter in the EPL, which he isn't even yet. And he has already gotten an opportunity when he was in the BL and beyond (you could argue he already is another example refuting the theory), albeit a while back and often not in his best position(s).
I just wanna say, Danny Williams is F***ing gangster. May he play internationally as a United States footballer once again. In the name of Clint Mathis, may it be so.